“It’s very nice to meet you too, Keziah. I’ve waited a long time to know you,” said Ruth Ann.
“Car, now,” bellowed my father. Susan and Porter headed for the front door of the station. I did not move. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand,” I said.
“Bad enough you replaced their earthly frippery. Do not disobey me. Get to the car now,” said my father, as he grasped the upper part of my left arm, and worked to propel me toward the door. I tried to hold my ground and failed.
“Let me go,” I snapped at him. My father ignored my protests, and would have dragged me to the car if Leo Cortland hadn’t materialized between my father and the door so fast that he might have been using magic.
“Let her go,” said Cortland.
“She will do as I say,” said my father.
“She said to let her go. Round here we don’t look kindly on assault. Good way to pick up more jail time,” said Cortland, evenly.
My father let me go, and stonily watched me turn back to Father Felix and Ruth Ann. “Now, where were we?” I asked, trying to pretend I hadn’t just been publicly manhandled.
“You were saying I must be very proud of my son. You’re right, I am. I was very proud of my daughter too. She was a lovely young woman. Her name was Pamela. We called her Pam,” said Ruth Ann.
“I’ve always liked the name Pam. It’s my mother’s name too.”
Ruth Ann licked her lips nervously and glanced over at my father. “I still miss your mother. I bet you do too.”
I was stunned. “I do. I mean, I was very young when she died. But I do miss her. How did you know her?”
Ruth Ann seemed to look at Father Felix pleadingly. The priest sighed. “Keziah,” he said gently, “Your Pam — and her Pam — are the same Pam. Your mother was my younger sister.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. My mother was an orphan. She didn’t have any family.”
Ruth Ann lifted her betrayed gaze to my father’s eyes. “You lied. You lied to her, you lied to us. What other lies have you told? What sort of monster are you?”
“Your daughter was an orphan for the Lord. She rejected you and your idol-worshiping son for a holy life. She was a righteous soul. Did you expect me expose Pam’s child to your hell-bound ways? I. Would. Never.”
I heard myself gasp. I don’t know if it was from the shock of finding family I never knew existed, or from the shock of hearing my mother spoken of as righteous by my father. It was possibly the nicest thing my father had ever said about her. In his world, righteous was about the highest praise possible. “Then it’s true? This is my grandmother and my uncle?”
My father looked down his long nose at me. “They are impure. Your mother knew this. Knew that they would lead her astray.”
“Answer the question!”
“Yes, this is your mother’s mother, and her brother,” my father spit out.
“Then this wasn’t an accident. Father Felix was right when he said you always show up near his parish during the summers. He wasn’t paranoid. It’s a family vendetta,” I said, meeting his furious gaze.
“My only concern is, and always has been, your soul. I have always done what I felt was best for your soul. These people are not good for you. They will lead you to hell.”
“Lead me to hell? Since I’m hell-bound now, according to you, I don’t see the difference.”
“These people would help harden your heart even more. You are arrogant and untruthful. Lost to all goodness and mercy. These people would give you succor. They would shelter you in your rebellion. I will not have you associate with them!”
“I’m an adult; I see who I please,” I said.
“Hell yawns before you, little girl, and you are too foolish to see it. Repent now!”
“No.”
He wanted to slap me, then. I could feel his palm itching to meet my cheek. I did not flinch. I knew he would not smack me publicly. It was not his way. Even if he had slapped me, I wasn’t about to let him off the hook. He was not going to get to blame God for his lies.
Ruth Ann shifted nervously as she watched my father and I square off. I can’t blame her, really, for what she said next. It’s not an easy thing to watch other people fight. It’s even harder to say the right thing in a tense moment. I would find out later that Ruth Ann had a talent for saying the wrong thing when nervous. Her next utterance was my first hint at her talents. “Please, don’t be so upset, dear. We would have been in contact sooner. Please understand. But we didn’t know. Didn’t realize you were alive. He told us you died when Josh passed.”
Next to Ruth Ann, Father Felix sighed and shook his head. Ruth Ann heard the sigh, and knew she had said the wrong thing. It was written plainly on her face. My father turned a bit paler at hearing her.
I placed my hands firmly on my hips. He hates when I face him with my hands on my hips. He says it makes me look bitchy. Which was more than fine with me in that moment. I was feeling more than a little bitchy. “Who exactly is Josh?” I asked.
“My son,” said my father. “I’ll be in the car.”
As he left the lobby, and headed for the parking lot with Porter and Susan trailing him, I watched in silence.
Six
I stood there silent and rooted looking after him until Ruth Ann touched me gently on the shoulder. “I’m sorry Keziah,” she whispered.
“It’s not your fault.”
Ruth Ann tentatively drew me into a hug. I wound up with my arm around her gently patting her frail shoulder. When she pulled back, I just looked at her. There were no words in me.
“Will you call us. Can we talk?” asked Father Felix.
“Of course. I just can’t talk about this now. I need to think.”
“We understand. Just. Here. Take my card. Call me. Call us. Anytime,” said Father Felix as he slipped something into my hand.
“I will.”
Father Felix slipped his arm back around Ruth Ann and started to ease her toward the door. She resisted and looked pleadingly at me. “Please Keziah, make sure you call.”
She’d found me, and didn’t want to risk letting me go. I couldn’t blame her. “He can’t stop me from calling now that I know you exist. Let me give you my home number.”
Once she had a sticky note with my number written on it Ruth Ann seemed reassured. She allowed Father Felix to help her out the door with only one backward glance at me.
The shock of finding out my father’s lies had left me unable to deal with their implications. I was left standing in the lobby, unable to decide what to do next. I mean, obviously, I had to go out, and drive my father, Susan, and Porter to Owenton. But, somehow, even that seemed too much to ask of me.
Finally, I looked up, and found Leo Cortland trying not to hover too close to me. I looked at him. “Quite a show you got today.”
Cortland shrugged his huge shoulders. “Did five years in New York City. I’ve seen weirder things eating my cereal on a normal Tuesday morning.”
“Still.”
“What’s the next move?”
“I’ve got to drive a car full of people to Owenton, and I don’t know how to leave this station.”
“Where is home?” he asked.
“Illinois, six hours away.”
“You could just hop in the car and go. I’ll find them a lift to Owenton. It’s not far. I’ll make sure it’s real uncomfortable, too.”
I smiled. “That’s really kind of you, but I gave them my word.”
Cortland gave me the one minute signal and slid back around behind the desk where he dug around for a couple of minutes before coming up with a slightly bent business card of his own which he came back and handed to me. “Take this. He gives you and grief, you call me.”
“And you’ll do what exactly?”
“Don’t know rightly. Just know that I didn’t like how he manhandled you. Bit of a red flag. Man willing to manhandle a woman in public, in a police station even, maybe he’s not as gentle when he gets her alone. It’d rel
ieve my mind to know you got home safe.”
I didn’t comment, just tucked the cards in my back pocket. Then I held out my hand and we shook. “Thanks for all your help.”
“You’re welcome. Drive safe.”
*
They were packed into my car. Porter and my father in the back seat, their knees up around their chins, with Susan in the front seat, her knees firmly pressed against the dashboard. I almost laughed. I had chosen my car just for me: fuel efficient, easy to take care of, small, and, above all, something which would last. Good thing I hadn’t asked Cortland to find them another ride — I’d never have gotten them out of the car until I’d kept my word.
I got in, and started the engine. The silence in the car was stout and grubby as I headed us out of the parking lot and toward Owenton. After about ten minutes Susan cleared her throat and ventured a few words. “We really appreciate this.”
“It’s no trouble. I’m headed that way anyway.”
“You shouldn’t believe what they tell you. They are liars,” intoned my father from the back seat.
“So they aren’t my mother’s family?”
“You know what I’m referring to.”
“I really don’t.”
“They must have told you everything. About Josh, about your mother, but they don’t know the whole story. They see things only from their point of view. You should not trust them.”
“I’m not going to discuss them with you.”
He huffed a little. “Your mother hated them,” he said.
I could tell he was about to start on a tear. So I did the only thing I could do, the only thing that years of dealing with him had taught me was effective. I stayed neutral.
“I’m not going to discuss them with you.”
My father lapsed into hard chilly silence. Neither Porter nor Susan seemed inclined to say more. Within twenty minutes we pulled up to a meadow just outside of Owenton, where an all too-familiar blue and white marquee-style tent was pitched. In a way I was amazed that the tent was still recognizable as blue and white. It had been patched so many times, in so many other colors, with whatever we had handy when the Fall came around. I could vividly remember spreading the tent out in our backyard, helping Susan and her mother patch another summer’s wear.
A light blue church van was parked in front of the tent. Years before, someone had hand painted “The First Free Pristine Church of God’s Unbridled Holiness” on the sides in black house paint. Impressively, most of it was still there. Behind the tent was parked their geriatric RV. The church bought it the year I was ten, and it hadn’t been anything like new then. Miraculous, really, that it was still running. Everything seemed normal at first glance.
I pulled my car to a stop next to the church van and waited for my passengers to get out. I didn’t shut down the motor. Susan gave me weak smile, and exited hastily. My father leaned the front seat forward and exited slowly. A crowd instantly came to greet him from in and around the tent. The crowd seemed unusually large, but I could not tell for sure from where I sat. Porter scooted over into the seat my father had occupied, only to find himself unable to get out of the car.
After a minute of silence, Porter cleared his throat. “Though you are not dressed appropriately, you should come greet everyone. Wonderful things have been happening with the Elder’s ministry. You should at least see what they are.”
It was the most he’d said to me since the police station the day before. I could not formulate an answer before my door was opened and I was swallowed in a familiar hug.
Jody Kline hugged me hard. “Sweetie, it’s so good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too,” I said, half returning her hug, as I glanced over to see if the crowd around my father was dissipating. It wasn’t. Porter was still stuck in the back seat.
“You must come see. Porter has brought so many people to the ministry with him. We have so many wonderful things happening. You’ll be so proud of your father,” said Jody, trying to draw me out of the car. When I didn’t budge she gave me a look of hurt and confusion.
“I have to get back home. I don’t have time to stop,” I said to her.
I could see that I had injured her. And I did feel bad about it. But not bad enough to get out of my car. I clung to the steering wheel as if it were a lifeline. It brought me no pleasure to hurt Jody. She’d been the closest thing I’d ever had to a mother. When her husband died, there had been speculation that she would be the perfect wife for my father. Nothing had ever came of the talk. I had often wondered why. Did she not want to be my father’s wife? Did my father not want another wife? Neither of them ever gave me any clue.
“It wouldn’t take ten minutes to look around,” said Jody.
“I agree. It would please us all very much if you would at least look around a bit,” said Porter as he put an oddly possessive hand on my shoulder.
“That won’t be possible,” I said.
Jody nodded. She knew me well enough to recognize the tone in my voice that indicated I wouldn’t be changing my mind. Slowly, she backed away from the car, leaving me room to close the driver’s side door with what I felt was a firm, but not defiant slam. Porter did not remove his hand from my shoulder as the crowd around my father moved away from the car and toward the tent.
“You are very attractive, but you would be rendered beautiful were you in possession of a contrite heart, and a lowly spirit.”
“Time for me to go,” I said with a look that I hoped said I would drag him from the car and leave him in a heap if I had to.
Porter nodded. “I’ll pray for you, Keziah,” he said, before finally exiting the car. I wanted to yell after him that he’d better not, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. Besides there was a possibility it would appear childish. I knew them well enough to know I couldn’t stop them praying.
As I crossed back into Illinois, the tears I’d kept tamped down found their way out. My first impulse, as it often had been in the past, was to run. Not back to Charity, but all the way back to my apartment. While tears streamed down my cheeks, I calculated how long it would take me to pack up and move far away versus the time it would take Ruth Ann Felix to contact me. I liked to think I could simply disappear. Poof. I knew I was kidding myself. The days of being able to pack a duffle bag and be gone were past. There would be house plants to give away, money to move, a job to find, and an apartment to sublet. Somewhere along the line I had gotten responsible. All I could think was damn.
Seven
I took my time on the road. There was too much for me to sort through. By the time I was back in Charity, I had missed Monday night dinner at the Brandt’s. As it would turn out, I hadn’t missed much.
The house was quiet when I arrived. John was the only one in evidence. He was sitting on the front porch, in the swing, but he wasn’t swinging. I got out of the car, pulling my overnight bag out of the hatchback before approaching the porch.
“Hey Kay.”
“John. How’s everything?” In my own drama I had forgotten Ivy’s. Now, facing John, I knew she’d made a hash of dealing with her mother.
John shrugged. “Ivy’s done something. Don’t know what. Mom’s been locked in her room since Sunday afternoon. Dad has been spending most of his time out in the barn. He’s not talking. Mark and Lem are out getting something to eat. Ivy tried to cook tonight. It wasn’t good. She’s up in her room too.”
“And what are you up to?”
“Waiting for you. Had a feeling you’d be along. How was your errand?”
“Costly.”
John nodded sagely in the manner of his father. It didn’t mean he knew exactly what I meant. It meant he was making note of my reply for further investigation. “Want to walk It off?” he asked.
“I should probably see Ivy first. She’s sure to be waiting for me to turn up,” I said, wishing I could avoid a little longer what was sure to be an angry Ivy.
“Go on then. You’ll be back sooner than you think,” he said
, cryptically.
The house was eerily quiet. Almost as if the stand off between mother and daughter had sucked the oxygen out of the atmosphere. I made my way up to Ivy’s room, and knocked on the closed door. “Come in,” said a surly version of Ivy’s voice.
I opened the door, and stepped inside. The trundle bed I usually used when visiting had been shoved haphazardly back under the bed. The quilt I had been using was sticking out from under the frills of Ivy’s bed skirt. Ivy was curled up under a worn yellow cotton blanket. Her favorite from childhood. She was reading Anne of Windy Poplars. Her least favorite of the series. As I closed the door behind me she glanced up, narrowed her eyes, and then went back to her book. She wasn’t speaking to me. I dropped my duffle on the floor next to her bureau, and left again. I almost didn’t blame her. After all, I’d deserted her.
Out front again, John looked up at me and smiled. “So that walk then?”
“Sure,” I said, making my way down the porch steps, pausing at the bottom for John to catch up with me.
We started out over the lawn at the same pace, down the dirt road toward Hiram’s Hill and the lake beyond. As we walked I could feel him waiting for me to start the conversation, so I obliged.
“What happened?”
“Really don’t know. One minute they were out in the garden weeding tomatoes, the next they were in their respective corners. I know Dad had a shot at cooling Mom down. Don’t think it worked. I had a try a getting some hint of anything out of Ivy. She threw a book at me.”
“Ahh,” I said.
“Why do I get the feeling you know more than you are saying?”
“Because I do. But I can’t tell you. It’s not my story to tell.”
“Of course. We could talk about your trip instead. How’s your father?”
“He didn’t even hug me when he saw me. He just lectured me on my clothing, and my sins.”
“You weren’t expecting anything else.”
“No, but a man who hasn’t been in the same room as his child in seven years, you hope he has something to say besides how dare you wear pants, and you are going to hell. You know. Maybe a thank you for bailing him out. Maybe a small piece of praise for helping him continue his holy work.”
The Color of Ordinary Time Page 5